Shot in the Dark
by anonymous1stClass
Summary: Midgar's still new, so the power grid is rather unreliable - much to the distress of three hapless SOLDIERS trapped on the Turk floor. So the Turks use this golden opportunity to get revenge for all the times SOLDIERS have tortured Turks. As their various creative forms of revenge rapidly spiral out of hand, the Turks realize that in the future they should just leave SOLDIERS be.
1. And So It Begins

_Rated T for Turk, because of "minor" Turk violence and Rude's mouth...yes, he actually talks in this one!_

A/N: In this fic, Midgar's still pretty new, so the power grid's kinda unreliable...much to the distress of three hapless SOLDIERs. Or it could just be the Turks who turn off the lights... (It's also a sort of unstated fact that SOLDIERs routinely torment Turks. Not necessarily canon, but the possibility can lead to some interesting forms of revenge.)

* * *

Reno slumped into an overstuffed chair in the Turks' lounge and watched as Rude set down the inordinately heavy cardboard carton that "they" had had to bring all the way up from the second-floor delivery zone.

The hauling around part wouldn't have been too bad, even as far as Rude was concerned, if the elevators had been working. Which they hadn't. Pressing the button for the sixty-first floor had started to take them down to the ground floor...and below. Reno had had to quickly hot-wire the elevator to get it to stop, because everyoneknew that in the basements were Hojo's labs.

Rather than risk another attempt at using the elevator, they had decided that it would probably be in the best interests of their continued relatively normal existence if they just used the stairs.

"This'd sure better be worth it, yo," Reno commented, rotating in his seat to swing his legs over the arm of the chair and stare up at the ceiling, arms behind his head. "After we had to haul it up sixty some-odd floors, twelve hundred some-odd steps..."

Rude refrained from replying, being too busy massaging his shoulder. If he'd done something to it and missed the next mission, Reno would pay. Rude realized that even though he was always making resolutions like that, Reno always got out of paying. The interest was beginning to build up, but there was little hope of ever collecting it.

Tseng and Elena walked in at that minute, and Reno sat up to give some indication, however slight, of attentiveness.

Tseng nodded briefly to Rude as Elena eagerly began opening the box.

"This is the shipment of parts I was telling you about. We need to contact the shop to have them fitted, but-" She suddenly stopped talking, and stared into the carton in disappointment.

Rude had no idea what she had been talking about, but her expression now implied that whatever he had carried up forty flights of stairs and almost-dragged up twenty-five flights, was probably not what she had expected and was therefore wasted effort. Extra reason to make Reno pay. No wait - maybe Reno could carry the box back down...?

Reno didn't notice the sly, very un-Rude-like way Rude was looking at him, being too busy trying to see into the large box without leaving his seat.

Elena, looking crestfallen, reached into the carton and pulled out the invoice.

"Twenty pairs high-sensitivity night-vision goggles," she read off morosely. "Twenty-five blank VHS tapes. Five industrial-grade free-standing desktop loudspeakers."

Tseng looked on in silence as Elena continued the dirge. "Five hundred foot roll of packing tape. Ten pounds of 20mm ball bearings? Blue spray-on hair dye? Two weeks' supply of MRE's?" She dropped the paper into her lap in disgust. "What kind of weirdo's mail did we get?"

Rude glanced back at Reno, but he seemed innocently intrigued by the contents of the box. At least, as innocent as was possible for Reno. It apparently hadn't been his personal order. That would have been the final straw. Rude would've had him carrying the crate all the way to Corel. And back. Twice.

Elena stood up and glared at the box of junk.

"Those parts had better get here _soon._" Her voice was venomous; whatever project the ambiguous "parts" were destined for was obviously very close to Elena's heart.

Tseng sighed to himself and looked at his watch. "I have to be in Junon in three hours; there's a high-security conference with all the department heads. We'll have to leave this here for now; we can send it back tomorrow."

Reno, who had been trying on a pair of night-vision goggles, pushed them up onto his head, displacing his normal pair.

"Why Junon, huh? Wasn't Midgar _built _for that sorta thing?"

Tseng shrugged as he turned to leave. "Power's still unstable in Midgar. Maybe they want to do a weapons demonstration and don't want the lights going out at a bad time."

"Hm." Reno turned back to the box eagerly, like a mentally unbalanced kid on some sort of warped Christmas morning. Rude realized, slowly and painfully, that he was plotting something.

* * *

"The one in the garage is broken, too," Angeal reported, coming around the corner to where Zack was standing, slumped against the wall in defeat and exhaustion, yet regarding the elevator doors in front of him with undiminished malevolence.

Their last training session in the temporary first-floor training room had been a little more rigorous than usual, and Angeal almost felt sorry for Zack as he realized that their last hope was gone - they would have to climb up fifty stories before there could be any hope of rest or hot showers. Unless they decided to stop off in the cadets' floors...but everyone knew that none of the facilities there were very good, when there were facilities at all.

"C'mon, Angeal, maybe we could stay somewhere in Midgar tonight. We wouldn't have to climb all those stairs, and..." Zack was panting as he followed Angeal to the stairs.

Angeal raised his eyebrows. "It's your own fault you're this tired, for taunting that Behemoth."

"Yeah, well, you didn't _tell_ me you'd given it a permanent Wall," Zack whined pitifully, dragging his feet up the stairs.

"You didn't ask."

"I didn't ask because I thought I could attack it. But no, you pull _that_ and it chases me all over simulated Gongaga in ninety degree heat for more than thirty minutes before you pop in and say, 'Oh, by the way, you might want to try knocking that boulder over onto it, because you've never had to before but I gave it a permanent shield and' - no, wait! You didn't even say that much! You just said, 'Utilize your surroundings,' whatever you thought I'd get out of that."

"The purpose of the session was to test your resourcefulness."

Zack sighed."Guess I failed that one then."

Before Angeal had to make a reply, they arrived on a landing and were confronted by an over-eager-looking Reno who was trying his hardest to not look over-eager.

"Heyya, guys. Why're you takin the stairs, yo?" Reno was now attempting an innocent act. Angeal wondered how the guy ever made it into the Turks, you could almost tell what he was thinking just by looking at him... On second thought, Angeal realized that no, he couldn't. All he could tell was that he was thinking of...something.

"You haven't noticed?! _All_ the elevators are broken!" Zack was saying, throwing his arms up in despair.

"Oh," Reno said, then added brightly, "There's a pair over there that work! I just came down in one!"

"Why didn't you _say_ something?!" Zack tore past him, all evidence of his formerly bemoaned exhaustion evaporating at the mention of transportation.

Reno stared after him, feigning shock. "I..._did_ say somethin'?"

Angeal shrugged and followed Zack into one of the elevators.

* * *

Reno remained frozen where he was until the doors had slid shut on the two SOLDIERs, then he darted into the other elevator, almost knocking down a cadet in his haste to get back to the Turk floors...fast. His plan was about to kick off.

* * *

"Hey, Angeal, what's up with this elevator? We've passed our floor."

Angeal turned to examine the button panel on the elevator. It looked normal, except...

"I think it's been hot-wired," Angeal commented. "And badly at that."

Zack stood behind him to look at the dangling wires Angeal had indicated.

"Maybe we could fix it -" he started to say, when the lights in the elevator suddenly died and they slid to a stop at the sixty-first floor.

They both stood silent in the dark for a few moments.

"Uhhh... What just happened?"

Angeal felt like cursing, but Honor prohibited it. "Power grid's down again."

"Great. So...where are we?"

"Turk floor, I think."

"Yay."

* * *

The battery-powered emergency lantern cast a sinister upwards glow on Reno's eager face; so much so, that Elena shivered inadvertently. He'd make a terrifying villain...

"So, folks," Reno addressed the assembled Turks, "what we're gonna do..." He paused for dramatic effect, but no one showed the slightest hint of falling for it.

Scratch that, Elena thought. Not villain material. Sub-villain, maybe.

"What we're gonna do," Reno continued, looking at each of the assembled Turks in turn, "is strike back at SOLDIER!"

There was no cheering and very little applause. Reno pointed a finger accusingly at Elena. "_You_ said you supported this! Back me up here!"

"I said I wanted revenge, but I was referring to the people who screwed up the delivery," Elena countered. "But on second thought, I might be able to bring myself to torment some SOLDIERs for a while. It's not like enough junior Turks don't go MIA for extended periods on the SOLDIER floors to justify it."

She noticed the nods of agreement around Reno's impromptu briefing table in the small storage room.

Smirking triumphantly, Reno turned to direct his finger at Rude.

"What about you, yo?"

"More hateful towards deliverymen myself," Rude grumbled. "But I think I'm pretty much stuck helping you out in your idiotic scheme. Or one of the SOLDIERs will thread your ponytail up your-"

Reno cleared his throat hurriedly and rapped the edge of the table with his EMR.

"What about you, Ciss?"

She shook her head. "I'm not going to help you do anything to them. But I will try to keep them from killing you, or vice versa, depending on how things go."

"Oh." Reno looked crestfallen. But hey, he still had more than enough recruits, particularly if he counted the junior Turks.

"All right then. Here're our plans." Reno dragged out a small bundle of papers, bound neatly together in typical Turk fashion. "And your standard-issue night-vision goggles are in the crate behind me, as well as some other...supplies. Let's get crackin'."

Elena scowled. These various odd materials had arrived awfully conveniently... "Wait just a second!" she demanded, as Reno turned toward the box. "That _was _your order, wasn't it?!"

* * *

Angeal and Zack successfully pried the broken elevator's doors open, but found themselves staring out into pitch-blackness.

"Uh, Angeal... Shouldn't there be at least some light?"

Angeal realized what he meant - even with their enhanced vision, they couldn't see in complete absence of light, which was what confronted them now.

Angeal let out a brief sigh and tried to spot any sort of semi-definite shape in the blackness confronting them. "There was another elevator next to this one, and Reno said it worked; all elevators are connected to the back-up generators, so power shouldn't be a problem."

"He also said this elevator worked."

"Yes, but we'll give him the benefit of the doubt and say he only used the other one and he didn't know this one was broken."

"Too bad we didn't know which one he used," Zack sighed.

* * *

"Aw, Reno, listen to that. They're giving you the benefit of the doubt. No one's done that for you in years!"

"Cut it out, Laney," Reno complained automatically, even though he was just as excited as she was. He reached over to the security console and switched the camera view so they could see the black-clad form of a Turk stealthily approaching the elevator, where the two target SOLDIERs were looking around futilely. "Two Guns is in position," he said. "Let's let 'er rip!"

* * *

A/N II: From here on out, it escalates exponentially.

Please leave a review! They increase both quantity and quality of my work. And they make me excited and giddy and more likely to update.


	2. The Shot in the Dark

Many thanks to my beta, Genesis R, for helping me get this chapter in shape and postable.

* * *

"Angeal, I don't like the looks of this place, or what little I can see of it," Zack said, tugging on Angeal's arm. "Let's grab that other elevator and _go_!"

Shaking Zack off his arm, Angeal felt along the few feet of intervening space between the two elevators until he felt the button panel. He and Zack both sighed in relief as the button dinged and the elevator doors slid open. The only light came from the control panel inside, which let out a welcoming glow.

Zack was darting past Angeal when a gunshot, from somewhere in the darkness, suddenly hit the panel; the warm glow flickered and died, and in the renewed blackness Zack let out a wail spawned by defeat and exhaustion.

Angeal whipped around, but refrained from drawing his sword for fear of slicing off part of Zack. The shot was not repeated, nor did the assailant show himself as Angeal warily regarded the blackness.

"Zack," he said, "I think we're dealing with mad Turks."

"Mad as in...angry?"

"No."

"Oh. You mean wacko. Like Reno."

* * *

Reno frowned and crossed his arms obstinately. "I'm not -"

"Reno!" Elena said suddenly from her post at a screen. "Target Three has arrived."

"Good." The sub-villain look returned to Reno's face as he turned to her screen. "Seal the elevator behind him."

The two Turks watched as the tall, confused-looking silhouette was cut off as the doors closed to block the light from the interior of the elevator.

Reno laughed at the angry exclamation audible over the camera's speakers. "Maybe _this_ will teach you SOLDIERs not to do to Turks..." His face fell as he realized that he didn't know _what_ SOLDIERs did to Turks, so he finished lamely, "...whatever it is you do to Turks."

* * *

"So, uh, Angeal...what now?"

"There's another elevator a few halls down. Or at least, there is on the SOLDIER floors, and there's no reason for the Turk floor to be laid out any differently."

"Great! Let's go!" Zack took off down the dark hallway, one hand trailing down the wall to orient himself; Angeal had no choice but to follow, unless he wanted to take on the mystery Turk who could obviously see in the dark.

Zack was fairly confident in his ability to navigate the halls; after all, it was laid out almost exactly like the 2nd's floors, and he knew them like the back of his glove.

"Zack!" he heard Angeal call from somewhere far behind him. "Slow down! I-"

Angeal's voice was suddenly cut off and followed by a reverberating crash.

Zack slid to a stop, intending to go back and rescue his mentor from the "mad Turks", when his hand lost contact with the wall and instead hit something else, a something with a strip of long hair hanging down behind it. Zack's hand instinctively closed on it. Reno's hair.

Zack put not quite all of his strength into a downwards jerk, intending to pull Reno over, not divest him of his hair. However, he was surprised when Reno failed to land on the ground; in fact, the person who he now doubted was Reno hardly budged at all.

Zack had no time to contemplate that fact any further as the person spun around, catching Zack in the jaw with a sword pommel. Okay, _definitely_ not Reno.

As Zack went down, he collided with the person's legs, bringing them down on top of him. Zack grunted at the impact, realizing from the smell of shampoo and leather that he'd just _pulled Sephiroth's hair_. He was going to be _so dead_. He didn't have much time to think about anything else, for just then he heard Angeal's heavy footfalls coming down the corridor towards them. He felt Sephiroth try futilely to scramble to his feet before Angeal was upon them, but he acted too late.

Zack squeaked as the combined weight of Angeal and the Buster Sword landed on him, also knocking Sephiroth down onto him again. He endured silently for a full five seconds before he started to complain, but Angeal cut him off.

"Sephiroth? What are _you _doing here?" the First asked incredulously. Sephiroth grunted and shoved at Angeal until the latter got to his feet.

"I was trying to get to the Firsts' floor, but the elevator wouldn't stop," Sephiroth explained, then suddenly froze. "Who's with you?"

"Zack...but I don't see why-"

Zack yelped as Sephiroth's hand suddenly closed around his collar. Could he really see that well in the dark? Nah, probably just a lucky shot, Zack decided, upon hearing Sephiroth addressing the space a little to the left of his head.

"You touched my hair," Sephiroth hissed.

Zack gulped. "I'm really s-sorry, Sephiroth, I mean, sir," he stuttered, before Angeal told Sephiroth to leave Zack alone, or he would remind everyone about the Faberge Egg Incident. Besides, as Angeal pointed out, it wasn't as though any real or permanent damage had occurred. Sephiroth growled and released Zack, who seemed to forget about the episode a few seconds after it happened.

"So Angeal, what tripped you up back there?"

Angeal grunted. "Someone had dropped some overstuffed duffle bags in the hall."

"That's weird. I didn't see any - what's that?"

The two Firsts had also heard the noise - a suppressed cough somewhere down the corridor - and promptly tore off in pursuit of the now-fleeing footsteps. If they could manage to catch a Turk, they could get the elevator fixed and be on their way. The only problem lay in actually catching one.

"Hey! Wait for me!" Zack yelled, running after them. "Don't leave me behind with these crazy Turks!"

Zack managed to draw abreast between Angeal and Sephiroth in their pursuit, but their quarry seemed to have disappeared. Angeal was about to suggest looking in side passages when what felt like like a leg suddenly impeded forward motion. He got a nice mouthful of thick carpet as he landed - and reminded himself to petition for similar things on the SOLDIER floor - before leaping up and chasing after his newest assailant, who was running off down the side corridor.

* * *

"Neatly executed, yo!" Reno proclaimed, watching two black-clad legs shoot out simultaneously from mirroring corridors, bringing down the two First Classes and letting Zack run on unmolested. The downed SOLDIERs rebounded, also simultaneously, and each ran off down the side-corridor next to them.

That sequence was perfection, and Reno was glad he was filming all of this.

Reno suddenly jumped up. "You stay here, Laney, and keep those cameras rollin'. I'm gonna go out there and have some fun."

* * *

Zack realized too late that he was running alone - he had already taken so many turns chasing the phantom Turk that he was now irreversibly lost in the blackness, and there was no hope of backtracking to find Angeal and Sephiroth.

He slowed down and looked around. He was in a long, straight passage with doors on either side. The Turk seemed to have disappeared, probably through one of said doors.

Zack had passed several, noting the brass numbers on them, before it occurred to him that he could see at all. This, he realized, was caused by a bluish glow periodically flickering out of an open door down the hall.

Intrigued by this strange phenomenon, Zack walked closer to investigate. Five steps short of the door, it suddenly slammed shut.

"Oh, shy, are we?" Zack asked the door. He edged closer, one hand on the hilt of his sword, ready for action. He had no intention to die by the figurative hand of Turk practical jokes; he had always had something a little more...heroic in mind.

He reached out, intending to quietly turn the knob and burst through, sword brandished. But he never got that far; the second his hand touched the door, bluish sparks leapt up his arm. Zack yelled and fell backwards, dropping his sword and clutching his arm. Was this a _prank_ to those crazy Turks?! Now they were trying to killhim!

Zack jumped up, grabbing his sword and eying the door maliciously. Fine, if they were going to try and kill him, he would do the same. But he couldn't let himself try too hard, otherwise he _would_ kill them. And that would be bad for his record.

* * *

"Reno, what are you doing?" Cissnei asked, walking up behind him.

"I'm doin' what _everyone _here is doin', Ciss," Reno whispered, as he stood behind a door onto the main corridor, flashing a bluish light into the corridor outside. "Now keep your voice down. Target One is approaching."

"You know I don't like you doing this to them," Cissnei said, lowering her voice nonetheless. "They don't - is that an EMR?"

Reno looked down at it and grinned. "Maybe."

They both suddenly stopped speaking as heavy footsteps coming down the hall became audible.

"Reno, enough's enough. I won't let you get in a fight with a SOLDIER." Cissnei kicked the door, causing it to slam shut with a metallic bang. Reno dropped the blue light, and Cissnei blinked as her night-vision goggles re-adjusted to the darkness.

Reno waved the EMR evilly. "Don't worry, I don't intend to get in a fight-" Reno stopped suddenly as the "Target" said something from the other side of the door. Reno reached out with the EMR and touched the doorknob.

"RENO!" Cissnei yelled, hearing Zack cry out as Reno electrocuted him.

But Reno was gone. Cissnei spun around, looking for him. Man, that Turk could run fast... Cissnei heard the door bang open behind her, and she turned to see Zack stumbling into the room, blindly swinging his sword around in random arcs.

Cissnei decided that attempted communication at this time would probably be fatal, so she quickly edged around Zack and ran down the corridor she thought Reno might have taken.

* * *

Angeal realized too late that the Turk he was chasing was long gone, assuming it had ever existed at all.

He was now completely lost, and the building's layout no longer resembled the SOLDIER floors in the least. The Turks had done a good job concealing the windows, and Angeal didn't even have a slit of light to orient himself by.

He was walking slowly down a frequently-turning corridor, one hand on the wall and the other probing the blackness for obstacles. He encountered a doorframe and went in, for lack of anywhere better to go.

Just as he was beginning to think that being blind wasn't really that bad, his hand touched a slightly raised panel on the wall; a large shape, soft yet unyielding, slammed into his side, sending him flying backwards across the room to collide with, and stick to, the far wall.

He thrashed around for a few seconds as he attempted to unstick himself, before he realized that whatever it was that had hit him had apparently lost interest.

As he hung on the sticky wall and regained his breath, he tried to determine what had hit him and why there had been no follow-up attack. The only conclusion he could reach was a spring-loaded bed. He had no idea why that came to mind, but it seemed to fit the evidence. So the Turks were resorting to bunkroom pranks. Although, he had to admit, the general idea took on a whole new life when done in the dark.

Growling in anger, Angeal twisted around to disengage the magnet holding the sword to his back, and promptly dropped to the floor. At least he himself hadn't been stuck to the wall, or he could have hung there more or less indefinitely.

He stood up and gingerly touched the wall; he could feel that his glove came away with strings of adhesive clinging to it.

He suddenly lunged for the Buster Sword. All that _wear_ and _tear_ and _STICKINESS! _But the Buster Sword no longer hung on the wall. Angeal cast about the room wildly, but eventually admitted the undeniable - the Turks had stolen the Buster Sword!

Angeal roared in anger and strode off in a random direction, tripping over low bunks and hitting his head on high ones as he gradually accelerated. He _would_ get that sword back, and make the Turks pay, somehow, if it was the last thing he did.

* * *

Sephiroth stalked slowly down the passageway, jabbing randomly into the darkness before him with the point of his sword. It irked him that lowly Turks _dared_ to even try this, and he mentally resolved to track down their leader and squeeze that brazenness out of him.

Sephiroth paused when he heard a faint noise behind him. All his muscles tensed, waiting for the downwards swish of a sword blade, just the right moment to spin and deflect, thrust and kill...

Something poked him lightly in the back. The noises rapidly faded away again.

Sephiroth stood there, blinking, sword poised in the air, stunned by such an..."attack".

There was no strategy, no purpose... So why had the assailant even bothered doing it? Sephiroth finally lowered his sword, thinking it over.

Another noise behind him. Sephiroth refused to even act concerned, and instead backed up against the wall, otherwise ignoring the interruption as he continued to muse... Maybe the Turks were attempting scare tactics? A subtle click, and an annoying whirring commenced; he tried to ignore it, too. Yes, that had to be it...they were trying to intimidate him, by ambushing constantly, unnerving him, driving him to the edge of paranoia...well, he, Sephiroth, the Demon of Wutai, would not be taken in by such petty psychological attacks. He attempted a light laugh, and stepped away from the wall.

His _body_ moved away, but his head seemed to be inexplicably stuck to the wall. Sephiroth quickly stepped back again, and felt his head. His hair was somehow attached to the wall; in fact, it seemed to be ... _inside_ it, if that was even possible. A chill went up his spine, less from the lack of the insulation usually provided by his hair than from considering what might have happened to it.

His hair stretched unnaturally away from his back, toward the wall. Sephiroth inclined his head closer to the wall to relieve the tension and attempted to assess what had happened to his hair. He continued his blind exploration until his glove brushed against a metal grating, and a soft labored whirring registered in his ears.

Oh Gaia, no. His beautiful_ hair_ was inextricably enmeshed in _THE TURKS' WALL FAN!_

* * *

A/N: As to the oblique reference to the "Faberge Egg Incident": Yes, there is a story behind it. No, it's not published yet. And yes, it will be at some point. (Just not now...) All that's necessary to know right now is that it's a story that Sephiroth would really, really like to keep from getting out.


	3. The Hojo Incident

Angeal finally slowed down once he was in the main corridor - it had just occurred to him that the mad Turks might be watching... Which they were, of course, just unbeknownst to him.

He stopped and looked around, but in the darkness, every direction looked the same. He picked a random direction and headed off, meanwhile cursing himself for allowing the Turks to drive him to the edge.

He barely paused when he collided with a metal doorframe, ignoring the new addition to his collection of bruises, and edged cautiously inside. He got all of two steps into the room before hitting an upended coffee table.

Angeal decided to ignore this latest anomaly, and pressed onwards...

...and tripped over a mound of couch cushions heaped on the floor.

He could feel himself becoming slowly angrier; he was a SOLDIER First Class, for Gaia's sake, he didn't have time for these games! Angeal took a deep breath and calmed the anger he felt growing inside him; in fact, if he looked on the bright side (which seemed nearly impossible in the total blackness, but Angeal managed nonetheless), this was really just another training exercise. Except it was an exercise in...anger management.

With a firm resolution to not lose it, no matter what happened, Angeal turned and felt for the cushions with his boot, but they had mysteriously disappeared.

He walked over to the previous location of the coffee table, but as he feared, it too had moved itself.

Angeal put one hand out on the wall and began circumnavigating the room in search of an exit. Five steps later, he encountered a couch pressed against the wall and climbed up and over it, having no desire to lose the fragile lifeline provided by the wall.

His next obstacle consisted of a ceiling-high mound of unidentifiable..._stuff _that had no business being in the Shinra Building. Angeal was forced to go around it. He could almost feel the silent, invisible hands disassembling it as he walked past, and he felt for it again just to see. Sure enough, it was gone and was replaced by a massive wooden desk.

On top of the desk, he could feel a row of neatly-arranged curios that tinkled cheerfully when he touched them; his respect for Turks grew as he realized that they had silently transported a massive desk, complete with knick-knacks, to within two feet of him, and he hadn't heard a thing. Not to mention that it had all occurred in the space of a few seconds. Angeal shrugged. Mere mortals, genetic enhancements notwithstanding, had no business questioning the Turks' powers.

Deciding to investigate the desk further, and possibly leave a scathing (though invariably illegible) letter to superiors, Angeal felt around the top of the desk. It was marble-topped, and based on that, the wood was probably something special too - Angeal wondered what high-level executive's office the Turks had pulled this thing from.

His fingers touched a strangely-shaped object, and he investigated further. Suddenly, a button depressed under his finger, and the darkness exploded with sound so loud, he could practically see it as vague colors floating across his vision.

Clutching his head desperately with one hand, he flailed wildly with the other in search of the source of the sound. His hand connected violently with the loudspeaker; the deafening noise ceased abruptly, and desktop curios flew in all directions. All Angeal could hear was a loud ringing in his ears; enhancements could be quite a burden, he decided, and then he began to wonder if he had gone deaf.

He felt the desktop again and noted the large crater where the battery-powered radio had been; now the hapless electronic was somewhere inside the desk. The Turks would have a hard time explaining _this_ one to their superiors.

* * *

After being electrocuted by a door and harassed by invisible Turks, Zack decided that he was in no mood for any more games. He ruefully realized that Angeal might say this was only fair, for he was bearing the brunt of "pranks" for the very first time. Zack snorted. "These _aren't_ pranks," he told himself out loud. "This is..." Torture wasn't exactly the right word; neither was cruelty. He wandered into Yet Another Darkened Room, mulling over the fine points of semantics.

"This is what, boy?" a loud, hideously familiar voice asked out of the blackness.

Zack's sword was out in an instant, and he was backing toward the door as fast as he dared.

"And where do we think we're going?" the voice asked. "You just got here. There's no need to leave."

The door to the room slammed shut with a loud bang, and Zack swung his sword around, pointing it at nothing in particular.

"H...H-Hojo..." Zack stuttered to himself, backing up even faster with the faint hope that the doors might open and he could escape.

"I have everything I need right here," the Hojo-voice pointed out, disturbingly inviting. Something metallic clinked, and visions of scalpels and syringes flashed through Zack's head. His back collided with something at that moment, and he spun around, panicking.

"That's the door, stupid," the voice said, sounding distinctly less like Hojo.

Zack squinted into the darkness as the sound of a scuffle and a whispered conversation reached his ears.

"Ehem...ignore my assistant. He's just here to dispose of the unused portions." The voice sounded more Hojo-ish, but a part of the statement seemed to have been dropped. Unused portions of what? Zack decided he didn't want to know. So what if Hojo was going senile? He was still Hojo, wasn't he?

Paper rustled, and Hojo spoke again. "Come right over here, I've a nice little spot ready...you won't feel a thing..." The voice seemed strained and rushed, almost as if Hojo was in pain.

_Not my problem_, Zack thought, squeezing his eyes shut (as if that did any good) and sliding down the door until he was sitting on the ground, still weakly brandishing his sword. He waited tensely for what felt like ages, but the Hojo-voice didn't speak. Maybe it had gone away? Zack could only hope, as he wasn't about to open his eyes and find out. As if that would do any good, he reminded himself.

The silence was long and complete, and Zack was about to convince himself that the voice really had gone away, when, without warning or preamble, it suddenly blurted out, "We...will...tear-your-guts-out-and-use-them-as- Reno! Get off it!"

Zack had scrambled to his feet in a second. Okay, _now_ what was going on? That first part, the sort of pained, mumbling one, had sounded passably like Hojo, but the second part?... Wait a minute - that voice had mentioned Reno! This was just another Turk trick!Without further ado, he ran more or less straight in the last known direction of the Hojo-voice.

* * *

"I have everything I need right here," Rude was squawking into the darkness, using his night-goggles to read the script in front of him. Reno was slouching in the chair next to him, admiring Rude's secret talent and hoping the thin wood partition would be enough to keep Zack from stumbling upon them in the dark.

Rude's foot suddenly connected with his shin, reminding him of his part in the prank. Reno quickly sat up and dutifully clanked the assortment of odd bits of metal laid out on the desk they were both sitting at. As he did so, he leaned out around the partition to observe their victim's reaction, which appeared to be in the category of "panicked retreat".

"That's the door, stupid," Reno said, only remembering to imitate the good Doctor halfway through the statement.

Rude kicked him again. "Reno. Stick to your assignment."

"Aw, cut it out, Rude. I assigned it."

Rude cleared his throat quietly, then began ad libbing in Hojo's voice, making up something about an assistant and trying to bring the one-sided conversation back on track, accidentally skipping a few lines in the progress.

"Aw, Rude, you're ruinin' it, yo!" Reno whispered.

"You think you can do better?" Rude shot back, as loud as he dared.

"Well...no..."

"Target's going to suspect something," Rude said suddenly, and began reading again, squinting at the page despite his goggles. "We...will..."

Rude went to flip the page, but his glove caught the edge of the paper and pulled it out of his other hand. The script fell onto the floor and slipped under the desk just as Rude hastily blurted out the next line in a very bad imitation of Hojo.

Reno shifted his weight to look desperately around under the desk for the errant script, and inadvertently placed his foot directly on top of it.

"Reno! Get off it!" Rude yelled, pulling on the script, but the infuriated yells of the trapped SOLDIER made it obvious that their cover had already been blown.

* * *

Sephiroth couldn't believe the Turks would do something like this. The moment he got free from this cursed fan... He growled low in his throat as he realized that he wasn't _going_ to be getting free - by his assessment, he had already been untangling for half an hour, and he only had a small fraction of his hair free.

A few strands had already been severed by the sharp metal that protruded from where he had slammed his fist into the fan to neutralize it; it would be a miracle if he had _any_ hair left after this. He refused himself the luxury of a yell of desperation and frustration. The Turks would _not_ wrench that out of him after only thirty minutes.

And so, seething and yet resigned to a tedious several hours in the dark, Sephiroth continued detangling.

* * *

Reno and Rude froze as the room beyond the partition suddenly went deathly quiet. Zack had stopped making any noise at all; the two Turks remained rooted to their seats, Rude frozen in the act of reaching under the desk to get the script.

The seconds ticked by, not a floorboard creaking, neither of the Turks daring to breathe. This stalking, predatory silence was downright terrifying compared to any of Zack's former incoherent yells. Somehow, the lack of any sign of the SOLDIER was far, far worse than the obviousness of his presence.

A passing thought occurred to Reno, that maybe this torment of super-soldiers was a tad inadvisable, but he quickly dispelled the idea with a nervous laugh and a recklessly whispered, "Maybe he passed out, y-"

At that instant, the plywood partition split from top to bottom, and Zack leapt between the two halves, landing atop the desk, sword raised. He stumbled and fell to his knees, not expecting to hit a surface so soon.

But the Turks weren't there to see his misstep - both of them had fallen backward out of their chairs; Rude landed on his back and struggled to free himself from his folding metal chair, and Reno landed on hands and knees, crawling frantically for a few feet before finding his legs and making good use of them, taking off through the doorway behind the desk. He glanced back for Rude, and said Turk ran into him from behind, treading on Reno's heels and bringing them both down. "Keep _running!_" Rude yelled, shoving at Reno's back.

Taking Rude's suggestion, Reno jumped back up and stumbled on. "Is he after us?" he panted, more for the purpose of insuring Rude was still there than for the sake of asking the question.

"I'm not looking," Rude replied, overtaking Reno.

Zack quickly leapt to his feet, located the Turks by all the noise they were making, and jumped off of the desk, sword behind him, prepared for a swing. "Come and get it!" he yelled, and landed on Reno's fallen chair, going down with a reverberating crash.

Zack looked up, but was of course unable to see the fleeing Turks; unfazed, he leapt up again, but was brought down by the chair tangled around his legs. He shook his leg futilely, but his foot had gone through the seat and was firmly caught. Hopping along on one leg to gain at least some distance on the Turks, he hacked blindly at the chair until it fell away.

Swinging his sword onto his back, he took off after Reno and Rude as fast as his enhanced legs could carry him. He had just enough time to contemplate that he hadn't ever run this fast, not even with that Behemoth chasing him through Gongaga, before he ran head-first into a wall.

Zack rebounded several feet, landing on his back and holding his head, realizing that he should have expected the passage to turn. He grimaced ruefully when he thought of the crater he must have left in the wall, but at least it wasn't his head that had the crater. He shrugged. Good thing he was mako-enhanced. Of course, it was his mako-enhanced speed that caused him to hit the wall that hard in the first place, but Zack always preferred not to think too hard about thinks like that - that was Angeal's job. However, Zack promptly forgot this rare reflective streak as he turned the corner and took off, at an only slightly slower pace.

* * *

After destroying the Turks' radio and evading the mysterious room rearrangers, Angeal finally wound his way out of the labyrinth that had once been the Turk Lounge.

All he seemed to be doing lately was wander from one booby-trap to another, but it couldn't be helped. He _had_ to recover the Buster Sword, or, if that proved impossible, find a working elevator and head back to the SOLDIER floor to report the renegade Turks. But that was tattling...SOLDIER Honor prohibited tattling.

Thinking over this dilemma, he put his hand out and noted resignedly that he was in front of another door, this one strangely closed. He looked up and down where the passage would be had he been able to see it, but this option seemed just as good (or as bad) as any other. At any rate, it was probably better than blindly wandering the halls.

Angeal was beginning to wonder if the Turks had pranks set up in all the rooms on the off-chance of one of the SOLDIERS wandering in by accident. Or maybe they were all being discreetly herded in the right directions... He shrugged, deciding that it probably wasn't important. But he had to give the Turks credit - they sure got all this set up awfully quickly.

He pushed the door open, stepping in. He immediately regretted his brashness a moment later, however, as a bucketful of ice water suddenly cascaded down upon him.

Angeal simply stood there, unmoving, squeezing the doorknob tighter and tighter until it finally crumpled with a weak "crunch".

Not a thought ran through his head until his cold, wet ears picked up the sound of fleeing footsteps behind him. Angeal turned with the speed only an antagonized SOLDIER could muster, and lashed out with his foot, catching his tormentor's ankle and bringing him to the ground. Angeal was on him in a heartbeat, the ice water seemingly deadening any dedication to Honor as his hands found his startled opponent's neck.

"Angeal!" the Turk squeaked out desperately.

Angeal paused for a moment, still not registering any logical thought but nonetheless intrigued that a Turk would be begging for mercy.

"Angeal!...Don't do this..."

Honor suddenly kicked in as Angeal realized that it wasn't a Turk he had captured. He quickly got off his captive's chest and stood awkwardly as the latter got to his feet.

"Zack?" Angeal asked tentatively, wondering if he had permanently traumatized his student.

"Why...? Are you trying to kill me, too?" Angeal heard the quiet yet distinct sound of a sword being drawn, and then realized with surprise and shame that Zack had sounded as though he was about to cry.

"No! Of course not!" Angeal blurted hastily. How did Zack always manage to do this to him? No one else could ever make him lose his composure. A hurt silence was emanating from Zack's direction. "I promise, Zack! I thought you were a Turk!" Angeal was getting desperate; this was so out of character for Zack. Sure, he _had_ been trying to kill him, but still... "Promise..." he finally said lamely.

"Okay," Zack said, suddenly cheerful. "Why are you wet, Angeal?"

The best Angeal could do was stare in Zack's direction and stutter, which almost never happened to Angeal. One second his apprentice had been about to cry, the next he was asking why his attempted murderer was wet? Angeal had never been able to understand Zack, and probably never would be able to, either.

He cleared his throat and tried to hide all evidence of former stuttering. "The Turks had ice water suspended above the door. It fell on me."

"Wow. Some pretty terrible things have happened to me, too." Zack paused contemplatively. "Hey, Angeal, have you seen any sign of Reno? I was chasing him through here...I think he's the one behind all of this."

Before Angeal had even started to answer Zack's question, a blue light flashed around a corner several yards down the hall.

"There he is!" Zack yelled excitedly, taking off after the light. "That blue light always means Reno!"

Zack was gone before Angeal's brain, sluggish of late, could even absorb all this information. Apparently Zack had been tormented enough to develop a few theories as to what was going on, or at least begin to link a few of these seemingly disjointed events in order to develop something that might pass as a theory as to what was going on.

Angeal decided he needed to stop thinking about this, as he was beginning to confuse himself. Without another thought and finally with a purpose, he took off, engaged in the semi-honorable pursuit of what those in the Shinra Building commonly called "Running Down Zack Fair".

* * *

A/N: I know Reno and Rude are acting very klutzy and non-Turkish, but it was sort of necessary to keep this from becoming a story about them slaughtering SOLDIERS in the dark. And it helped the humor (I think). Hope you're enjoying it! (And the re-arranging scene in the Turks' lounge is derived from a game of blind-man's bluff that got more than a little out-of-hand, which ended with the entire room virtually unrecognizable...)

Also, this fic was my entry for a writing competition between myself and Genesis R, with the prompt being something like this story's summary. So if you like the premise of this one, be sure to check out Genesis R's "Lights Out" - it's definitely worth looking into!


	4. Things Uncalled-For

Cissnei realized that, as bad as this whole thing was, it could have been far worse. Broken glass, tear gas, buckets of rocks instead of ice water over doors, cactuars running loose...all of these had been proposed at one time or another, mostly during the initial meeting. Cissnei had been shocked by the immaturity of it all, and had vetoed most of the outrageously violent schemes being planned by simply pointing out that they were just as likely to back-fire on the Turks.

Using the excuse of an innocent conversation with Elena in the security room, Cissnei had managed to surreptitiously locate all three of the SOLDIERS. Zack and Angeal hadn't seemed too desperately in need of assistance, as the former was busy running down a panicked Reno and Rude, and the latter was smashing holes in Heidegger's desk.

Sephiroth, however, had seemed more than a little desperate. In fact, she had thought that for a second a pleading look had been on the Silver Demon's face as he had unknowingly gazed directly into the camera. Cissnei decided that the most important thing for her to do was free Sephiroth before he got himself out and slaughtered them all indiscriminately.

With this thought foremost in her mind, to block out the unsavory images of Reno impaled on Masamune, she hurried down to the elevator banks, where the First Class General was entrapped.

* * *

Less than half his hair had been extracted. Sephiroth sighed in exasperation, and even considered praying to Genesis' Goddess. He quickly shrugged off that thought. He was Sephiroth! The armies of Wutai andofShinra trembled at his name! He should _not _have to pray to some fictional goddess, as if said goddess could actually do anything to help his hair.

His hair. Sephiroth half-sobbed, not even wanting to think about what he would look like if he ever got himself free. How could this be happening to him? His aching arms finally fell to his sides as he leaned back against the wall containing the fan. He would have liked to sink to the floor to rest his enhanced-but-stiff legs, but two points stood in his way. One was his hair (another sob), and the other was his reputation. The Turks would kill to see him sink to the ground in defeat, or better yet, to be able to say _they_ madehim sink to the ground in defeat.

The thought of Turks in general filled him with rage, and he raised a fist to pummel the fan into submission. But before the blow could fall, the fan gave a defiant click and whirred to life. Sephiroth panicked and grabbed for the freed portion of his hair, but the fan had made no move to suck it in again. Instead, it was spinning on reverse, spewing his hair back out at him.

Sephiroth could barely control his elation. Had the Goddess truly heard his thoughts of a moment before? Perhaps this devotion to the seemingly omnipotent deity was what gave Genesis his consistent good luck. Or at least, gave Genesis better luck than what Sephiroth had.

Sephiroth suddenly froze at an abrupt tug on his hair. His stomach did a flip when he realized that his hair was now being wound about the fan in the _other_ direction.

"Noooo!" He couldn't pull it out fast enough; it was _all_ going to go right back into the fan and he'd be back to - Suddenly, as if the possessed electronic had heard his cry, it reversed yet again, and Sephiroth jerked the last of his hair free, stumbling backward with joy at being free at last, trepidation as to the state of his hair, and a parting death-glare in the direction of the innocently-whirring fan.

He had to get out of here before something even more permanent occurred.

* * *

Zack lost the blue light by the first split in the passage, and he slid to a stop, making a circuit of the intersection. Hm, three different options. Reno was obviously leading them somewhere, probably somewhere terrible, but Zack _did_ want to get his hands on him to exact vengeance for the whole Hojo thing.

Angeal arrived as Zack was weighing his options. Despite being a SOLDIER, Angeal was close to exhaustion; in addition to being the only person able to cause him to lose his composure, Zack was also the only person who could completely wear him out within ten minutes.

"Now where?" Angeal considered it rather ironic that in this particular circumstance, he seemed to be taking orders from Zack instead of the other way around.

Zack shrugged, a gesture that was lost in the darkness. "I guess we just pick a direction."

Sighing, Angeal realized that a lot of this wandering came down to random guessing; however, he invariably guessed wrong every time. "You're the lucky one," he said. He decided that worse things could happen than ceding his safety to Zack's guessing.

"Am I?" Zack commented wryly, turning in a circle before picking a random corridor. "Let's go...this way?"

Angeal grunted indifferent assent. "Which way?"

"This way." Angeal felt Zack grab his arm and tug him off down one of the invisible passages. They had barely gone five steps before a bright light behind them caused them to spin around again.

"Wrong way."

Zack took off at sprint, pushing past Angeal to get at Reno and his light.

* * *

Cissnei sighed to herself as she slipped quietly away from Sephiroth's general location, glad that she had been able to avert any Masamune-and-Reno-related catastrophes. Being that close to a near-tears Sephiroth as she tried to silently repair a fan, even from the other side of the wall, had been a nerve-wracking experience, and she thanked the Goddess it was over. She didn't care to think of what might have happened to her if the Silver General had caught her manning the instrument of his humiliation, and at the same time she was thankful for said humiliation, for without its welcome distraction he would have undoubtably heard her tinkering.

She flattened herself against a wall as the sound of a whispered conversation reached her ears; she was prepared to run for it, thinking Angeal and Zack were still teamed up and hunting Turks, when a group of Turks themselves rounded the corner up ahead. Upon catching sight of Cissnei, all five of the Turks, none of whom Cissnei recognized what with the goggles and all, simultaneously either flattened themselves against the walls or ducked into convenient doorways.

"Relax, it's me," Cissnei hissed, desperately hoping at the last minute that Sephiroth wasn't still hanging around somewhere.

One of the Turks, probably Two Guns based on the height, peeled himself away from the wall and slid towards her. "What are you still doing here? We're about to enact the next phase!"

Cissnei knew she probably should know what the "next phase" entailed, but she had been too disgusted toward the end of the meeting to even bother taking in the details.

"What's in the next phase?" she asked, feigning nonchalance.

"Well, you know... It's the part with the... um, Rod, what was it again?"

"Twenty-millimeter ball bearings," the red-haired Turk piped up helpfully from his position inside a nearby doorway.

Two Guns nodded decisively at Cissnei, then summoned his team with a swift hand signal and the group snuck on down the passage. Cissnei stood in the middle of the hall and watched them go, trying to remember what that particular prank would entail and who the primary target was. She felt a certain duty to help the SOLDIERs, since they seemed to be on the losing side; she'd already given Sephiroth a hand, now it was someone else's turn.

* * *

Angeal pushed the limits of his strength to catch up with his enthusiastic apprentice. "Zack," he gasped, stumbling over a mound of couch-cushions that suddenly materialized in the passage. "Why are we chasing _Reno?_ He'll lead us into more trouble."

"I almost caught him once," Zack pointed out disconnectedly.

"What does that have to do with anything?"

Even though they were running headlong down an obstacle-filled hallway in pitch darkness, Angeal could almost see Zack's shrug. "Nothing. But does anything here make much sense?"

"The Turks are out for blood. What is there that doesn't make sense?"

"You know, like how they can apparently see in the dark, and be everywhere and nowhere at once, and time their pranks so perf -" Zack's voice ceased abruptly, with a vaguely metallic-sounding impact.

"Zack?!" Angeal stuck his arm over into the space next to him that had previously been occupied by Zack; however, it seemed that he was now alone in the passage.

Angeal hurried back the way they had come, feeling around for Zack, with a deep sense of foreboding as to the state his apprentice would be in when he found him. Make that _if_ he found him.

Within five steps he felt a door that had apparently been opened into the passage. There was no sign of the Second in the hall, so Angeal cautiously walked into the room beyond. He froze when he heard a sharp click, and then the metallic noise of a spring being slowly released. He knew he had heard that sound before. If only he could remember... All further thoughts and recollections were erased from his mind when a loud plasticky-sounding pop resounded from across the room, and something small and fast-moving hit him in the eye.

* * *

Two doors down, Zack sat up dazedly, rubbing his head and absentmindedly wondering what had just attacked him. He stood up and listened for any sound from Angeal. Nothing.

Maybe he had knocked himself out on that door? It was unlikely, considering he was a SOLDIER and all, but he reluctantly admitted to himself that it might be possible. Particularly when the SOLDIER in question ran head-first into something at top speed.

Zack felt the space in front of him with the tip of his sword, some part of his brain still insisting he had been attacked by something.

He didn't have to probe far before his blade connected with metal. After verifying that it wasn't some relative of a Sweeper in front of him, he reached out to touch it with his hand. A door.

Zack scrunched up his face, trying to imagine why a door would be in the middle of a hallway. Oh, wait. It was a side-door that had been opened into the corridor.

Maybe he should stop hitting things with his head; his brain didn't seem to be functioning well as of late.

Zack started to laugh at himself, but stopped abruptly, wondering if he should be worried about the Turks hearing him. Nah, someone had opened that door. They knew he was here. Now he sounded half-insane, laughing at nothing in particular. Zack shrugged and grinned again. So what if those Turks thought he was going mad? Maybe they'd stay away from him.

He turned to go through the doorway belonging to the door that had attacked him, but ceased this action too by wondering if more prudence was required. After all, the Turks _had_ herded him here. Goddess only knew what was waiting on the other side.

Zack decided rather imprudently that at this point he didn't really care. Besides, there was always a chance that he could catch a Turk, and that prospect far outweighed any physical injuries he might sustain. He shrugged and bounded through the doorway into the room beyond, and landed on a floor that seemed to move beneath his feet. He slid and rolled across it, trying to keep his footing. Then his feet were moving forward faster than the rest of him, and in the single second he had before hitting the floor, Zack made a solemn vow to more often heed Prudence.

The floor, apparently not appreciating the gravity of the moment, unceremoniously dumped Zack in a painful sprawl.

Zack sat up slowly, rather resigned to whatever new fate might await him. Since no blade or bucket of ice water descended upon his head, he decided he was in a fairly good position to investigate his latest mishap.

He noticed that the floor beneath him seemed a little harder than the normal carpeting in the Shinra Building. It also separated into individual little spheres. Zack picked one up and rolled it between his fingers. A marble? It was heavy. A metal marble? Okay, so the Turks turned out the lights, hit him with a door, made him run into a room carpeted with marbles, and they called it a prank? He actually wasn't sure _what_ the Turks called it, but it far transcended the normal bounds of humor. Did the Turks actually know what real "funny" was, or were they so isolated and deprived that they thought this _was_ funny? Well, it wasn't. It -

"Huh?" Suddenly his hand encountered a sphere larger than the rest. He tried to bring it closer to his face to get a better look at it, but the total lack of light rendered the action futile. But something about the size and smoothness of it felt familiar... Acting on a sudden urge, he attempted to absorb it into his left hand...and it worked.

Zack grinned evilly as his hand began to glow with the cheery flames of a Hell Firaga. He wasn't about to question how it had ended up where it did - maybe one of the Turks _did _have a sense of humor.

* * *

Sephiroth had hurried away from the vicinity of the fan with as much speed and dignity as he could muster, while keeping at least three feet between his hair and the walls at all times. He _had_ to find a working elevator, and fast.

Now he found himself in the utter blackness, unable to touch any material object with his hands, or even with the tip of Masamune. From what he could determine, he was in some sort of large, echoey place with a vinyl floor. Aside from that, he could be in a public restroom for all he knew.

He proceeded cautiously, feeling the space before him with his sword, waiting for his hair to be accosted somehow at every step.

Masamune touched something solid.

Sephiroth quietly approached his find and tentatively reached a hand out to it. A cold, hard surface. Didn't seem dangerous... His hand probed farther, until it abruptly slipped into some sort of depression in the surface and encountered a strange, wet substance.

He jerked his hand back, at the same time trying to keep the stuff off of the rest of him.

Maybe he _was_ in a restroom...?

Sephiroth promptly discarded the theory. Large, echoey space. Definitely _not_ a public restroom. But then that left him with the obligation to determine what the thing confronting him was, and if it posed a threat, and if he needed to neutralize it.

Shaking the slimy, jellyish remains of the original exploration off his hand, he walked around the periphery of the object. It was table-sized, metal, and had numerous depressions laid out in a grid-like pattern. Each indentation contained a different substance, and - Oh. Wait. It was a buffet.

Sephiroth considered praying to the Goddess that no one had seen him make a fool of himself at a buffet, but decided against it. He knew _he_ would get annoyed by constant pestering for favors; the Goddess probably would, too.

Or would she?

* * *

Reno banged the door open and swaggered into the security room, causing Elena to jump and grab around for something that could be used as a weapon.

"Relax, Laney," Reno said, grinning at her surprise. "Who'd you think I was, a SOLDIER?"

Elena shook her head angrily, more in response to his attitude than to his question. "You'll draw them right to us, with all the pointless noise you're making." Elena turned back to the screens, and noticed that the camera focussed on Sephiroth had stopped recording. She had probably accidentally hit the button when Reno had barged in. She bit back another scathing remark about his habits, merely hoping that nothing interesting had been missed. She looked back at the screen, and noticed that Sephiroth's face wore the same sort of pleading look she had noticed when he had been stuck in the fan.

Had she missed something good? He seemed to do that whenever something particularly bad had just happened... If they had missed something, at least it wasn't her fault - it was Reno who had indirectly caused her to stop filming. But there was no point in being concerned with that, since there were still enough tapes to go around. She glanced back at the red-haired Turk, who was flopped in one of the chairs watching Angeal getting peppered with Two Guns' velcro Nerf darts.

Reno eventually stood up. "I'm goin' down for another beer. You want one?"

Elena was vaguely surprised that he had bothered to ask, but then again he knew that she hated beer.

She scowled at the screens. "No."

"Your funeral, yo. You'll wish you had one, later on." He sauntered out again, and Elena looked over at the screen currently showing Zack stalking confidently down a currently empty corridor. Her eyes widened in shock at the flames curling around his hand; how in Gaia's name had he gotten his hands on a materia?

She quickly got up and bolted the door, deciding that she at least would not suffer from some Turk's incompetence. She considered warning Reno about what was headed his way, but she decided it was too risky. Then the irony of his parting comment occurred to her and she smiled to herself. Going out there was going to be _his_ funeral. Besides, it was high time she got to see Reno humiliate himself. If the humiliation was painful, so be it. It would stick longer...maybe.

* * *

A/N: Hope you're enjoying! And stay tuned - Zack and that Hell Firaga are going to be very busy!


	5. FIRAGA ZACK

Sephiroth backed away from the buffet and turned to trace his steps back to the entrance of the room. Nothing good had come of this room, only humiliation and a desperate plea to the Goddess for no witnesses of said humiliation.

Wait, what was he thinking? He expected something _good _to come from anything Turks had a hand in? Since when had he anticipated the best? Urging himself to think more pessimistic thoughts, he hastened his steps toward the door.

But then, a bright and sudden light behind him; a glassy tinkle.

Sephiroth scowled. A summon.

As the light died, Sephiroth slowly pivoted to face his adversary, Masamune held ready, his well-trained muscles tense and waiting. All his vision could make out was a large, squarish shape, facing him motionlessly. A Vajradhara, or possibly an Ifrit. Albeit an extraordinarily small one.

Small or not, it still was a monster. And he was a SOLDIER. SOLDIERS fought monsters. It wasn't that hard for him to decide what he had to do next.

He tensed even further, then sprang at his opponent, beginning with a swift upward strike at where its head should be. He followed it with a quick spin and a move meant to deflect the monster's weapon, if it had one. The creature was apparently either too stunned or too wounded to respond; Sephiroth found himself starting to smirk as he launched Cross-Slash, creating eight neat cuts in the monster. A satisfying crunch followed each swing, and the floor around the battle became increasingly sticky.

* * *

Reno whistled happily under his breath as he walked down to the commissary for a beer or three. He absently checked his watch and noted that it wasn't quite nine o'clock. It was amazing how long it seemed they had been torturing the SOLDIERS. Reno smiled contentedly. It had been a good two hours, worth every second.

In the meeting beforehand, Elena had asked how long they planned on keeping the SOLDIERS here; Reno had hemmed and hawed and suggested an hour or two. Now that it was going so well, he was starting to wish he hadn't ever committed even to that vague approximation. He would be more than happy to keep them all night, if it gave him the opportunity to seize some more Priceless Moments With the First Class SOLDIERS...and Zack too, of course.

Reno arrived at the mess hall's side entrance, and froze when he noticed that the third target, Sephiroth, was already there. The Turk shrugged nonchalantly to himself and strode to the refrigerator as casually as he could while still trying to be completely silent.

He eyed the fridge's handle through his goggles, trying to decide how to get it open without making any noise. He glanced over his shoulder, and as if on cue Sephiroth turned and stalked away toward the main entrance. Reno grinned and pulled the fridge open, making his selection from the dozens of different beers (which constituted the sole contents of the refrigerator), and had the door closed again quickly.

He balanced his beer bottles in one hand and glanced back at Sephiroth, but to his horror the SOLDIER was barely ten feet from him, staring directly at him, Masamune in his hand and a grim determination in his eyes.

Reno's eyes widened in surprise and he jumped back, landing several feet away and sliding several more on the linoleum. He caught himself on his free hand and looked up, expecting to see Sephiroth towering over him, swinging his sword down for a killing blow.

However, the Silver General seemed to have become distracted by the refrigerator. Reno pushed himself into a crouch, eyes locked on the strange scene before him. Sephiroth stared at the appliance as if transfixed, not a muscle in his body moving.

Reno squinted and jiggled his goggles to make sure that this was actually what was happening. He was thinking of thumbing his nose in the First's direction, just for bragging rights, when Sephiroth suddenly sprung at the innocent fridge, brutally slashing and stabbing its front with cruel impassiveness.

Reno watched with growing horror as the sacred appliance (one of the only things in Shinra to be permanently attached to a back-up generator), was reduced to sad little shreds of metal and broken glass and...

"My beer!" Reno wailed, staring down in horrified dismay at the great pools of brownish liquid spreading forlornly across the floor. He remained frozen there until the trauma was overcome by the terrifying realization of what he'd just done. His head whipped up toward Sephiroth; the SOLDIER _was_ staring at him this time, no doubt about it. He took two slow steps back toward the entrance he had come through, hoping that the dark might give him sufficient cover to make a successful flight.

He took two more steps; then the linoleum squeaked.

Sephiroth leaped toward him with his sword raised. Reno's hand lost its grip on the beers, and they fell to the floor and shattered as he made a panicked beeline for the door.

* * *

Leaping after the small sound in the darkness, Sephiroth quickly gathered himself to give chase to his suspiciously Turk-like quarry, but at the first step he slipped in more of the strange liquid, miraculously avoiding the broken glass and metal shards as he grabbed wildly for some sort of support. His hand found something solid and he started to pull himself to his feet when his hand slipped down into it and sank halfway to the elbow in something sticky that smelled like tartar sauce.

Sephiroth slowly stood and removed his hand from the buffet again. He needed something to strangle, and fast. But first he had to find it. Sephiroth stood silently, listening for the faintest of sounds to direct him toward his target. He waited the barest of seconds before he noticed the sound of footsteps fleeing toward the door. Sephiroth leapt after them, trying to avoid the worst of the chaos that was the Turks' lunchroom, and picked up even more speed once he was back in the relative safety of the hallway.

* * *

Events were rapidly becoming more and more unbelievably extraordinary for Zack Fair. The second he had walked out of the ball-bearing room with his new weapon and light source, he had run nose-to-nose with Rod and a bundle of other random Turks. The sight of him had sent them skittering in whatever direction they could locate first.

Zack strode down the hall after them, shooting triple fireballs nonstop, left and right, at the panicked and fleeing Turks. Screw collateral damage; he was out for _blood_. He deserved to terrorize them, after what they'd done. They would pay for every second they'd tortured him.

"SOLDIER Second Class FIRAGA ZACK, on the job!" he yelled, making the Turks scatter so fast that there appeared to be at least twice as many as there really were.

One Turk had stumbled into a corner, and resorted to trying to climb the walls before finally finding an opening and dodging away; Zack almost felt sorry for terrorizing the little rookie so much. After that incident, a lot of Turk parties seemed to have gotten the memo of the current state of things, and had made themselves scarce. Zack hadn't even seen a Turk for close to five minutes now. Too bad he had been more interested in scaring Turks than catching them - a pair of those goggle-things they had would be nice, because Hell Firaga wasn't exactly designed as a light source, and it did get hot.

He still hadn't located a working elevator; he had passed several which had been invisible to him before, but all of them were inoperable, mostly by being shot to pieces in their vulnerable button-panels. Despite his enviable position (at least, enviable to some), he was beginning to get bored.

He blew out an impatient breath as he swung around a corner, and looked up to see his action being mirrored by a small Turk coming around another bend a ways down the passage.

The Turk recoiled several steps in consternation, and then dodged back around the corner.

"Hey!" Zack yelled. "Get back here!" This Firaga-induced power was going to his head - he was actually _enjoying_ the feeling of running down a small, comparatively helpless little Turk. Okay, he had been starting to see himself as the monster until that final word, at which he rapidly recalled everything that had happened in the past couple of hours. The Turks deservedthis.

Zack ran around the corner after the Turk, and in the dim light he noticed a door closing several yards down. He ran to the door and violently kicked it open. The Turk, apparently attempting to flee down a fire escape but foiled by multiple layers of plywood and duct tape, spun around to face him.

Zack marched up to her, then stopped abruptly as he realized that he had absolutely no idea what he was planning on doing to a Turk once he caught one - catching one had always been first priority; he hadn't bothered to think anything through after that.

Zack paused and regarded the Turk with his head cocked to one side. The Turk was staring at him in turn, as if she was trying to decide how to approach the current situation.

"What am I going to do with you?" Zack mused, somewhat irritated because this Turk didn't seem too worried about him killing her.

"Well, you could start with letting me go because I kept you out of getting tear-gassed and pummeled with rocks?" the Turk half-stated tentatively.

Zack's eyebrows said "yeah, right" better than words ever could.

"Look," the Turk said, pulling off her goggles and stepping into the light from the Hell Firaga. "It's me, Cissnei."

Zack regarded her disinterestedly. "So?"

Cissnei shifted her weight and hesitantly smiled at him. "I'm for you. Sort of. Actually, I'm really just trying to keep everyone from killing each other. So could you put the materia away?"

Zack brought the Firaga closer to his body, almost protectively. "No."

The Turk was starting to look uncomfortable. "I could find you an elevator? ...Maybe...?"

Zack shook his head. "Don't trust ya. And I want revenge," he added.

She sighed. "Is there any way I can convince you to -"

"Sure," Zack interrupted, gesturing at the goggles in her hands. Now it was Cissnei's turn to clutch her possession protectively.

"Those Turks out there are out of their minds. They might do something to me, just to get a kick out of it."

"I doubt that," Zack said smoothly, lifting the goggles out of her weakening grasp. "Besides, I think they sent you here to try and talk me down." Zack turned to leave, slipping on the goggles.

"What? I -"

"Not gonna work."

Cissnei tried to keep from cursing; he had walked out on her. Sure, he didn't have much reason to trust any Turk nowadays, but to blow her off like that...and take her only source of security... Of course, that whole part about her fellow Turks doing something to her was all fabrication, but still, couldn't he act at least a _little _concerned for her well-being? She sighed and started her painstaking journey in the dark back to the security room.

* * *

Reno stumbled down the corridor wildly, very un-Turk-like, until he was sure Sephiroth wasn't following him. He generally wasn't that frightened by Sephiroth, but under these conditions, he had seemed...feral. Reno would rather have to fight a Bahamut with his hands tied than face Sephiroth when the SOLDIER was that furious-looking. At least, he hoped it was just furious-_looking; _otherwise he would have to go ahead and say goodbye to his loved ones, of which he luckily had none, as he probably wouldn't live long enough to bid them farewell.

He _really _needed a beer.

And with the beer in the commissary destroyed, the only other place would be... Reno cautiously snuck down the hall to the Turks' collective office, only pausing once at an intersection as Angeal blundered past, growling to himself with his back covered with Nerf darts.

Reno rounded a corner and marched into the office, sauntering past the desks to the six-foot-tall filing cabinet. He glanced left and right, to insure that no one was watching, and began to push it aside.

Reno realized what a good thing it was that Tseng was the only Turk who filed his reports in the cabinet - otherwise the filing cabinet would be impossibly heavy to move. Reno had gotten the filing-cabinet pushed aside about a quarter of the way when he noticed an unexpected orange light in the alcove behind it.

Reno stared blankly at it for a second or two, wondering if something had crawled up from the labs to come feed off of his beer. He decided that whatever could happen to him couldn't _possibly _be any worse than not knowing the fate of his sacred stash, so he poked his head into the alcove, expecting the worst. What he saw was beyond said expectations.

FIRAGA ZACK grinned down at Reno from his position atop the beer cooler, one hand flaming and the other brandishing a half-empty bottle.

"Heyya, Reno," Zack said, still grinning at the frozen Turk. "I hate having to bother you, but do you remember a certain incident...involving electrocution? Or maybe one with Hojo in it? Or a door? Or marbles? Or... Oh yeah! Something big... I think it was, maybe, an elevator?" Zack hopped down from the cooler. "And one that hasn't happened yet, that involves your hair...and this Hell Firaga." Zack looked lovingly at the materia's flames.

Reno maintained enough poise to stifle a whimper, but could only manage to move once FIRAGA ZACK started advancing on him.

And once he could move, he ran.

But FIRAGA ZACK was too fast; he cut Reno off before the Turk could reach the exit, and corralled him back into the room, where the panicked victim resorted to running in circles around Tseng's desk to escape the hungry flames and buy time to think up a better strategy.

"You'll never escape, yo!" Zack shouted mockingly, leaping onto Tseng's desk and upsetting an industrial-sized bottle of White-Out in the process. Reno tried to duck under the desk, but slipped in the White-Out and landed on hands and knees. He glanced over his shoulder long enough to note that Zack seemed to be having similar difficulties in the correction fluid, and used the seconds thus gained to crawl under the desk and out the other side.

He stood up to make a run for it, but Zack was already behind him again. Reno would have sighed in exasperation if he hadn't been fleeing for his life; instead, he resumed making circuits of the desk to wait for an opening to escape. He neared the pool of White-Out again, and decided that he could probably gain some ground by leaping it. As he leapt he aimed for the folding metal chair positioned in front of the desk, intending to land in a crouch and push off the chair toward the exit.

But karma and the chair's flimsy seat had other plans - Reno's feet continued on through the seat and hit the floor beneath. He started to consider all the ways in which this was very, very bad, but didn't get much farther than "Tseng angered by needless destruction" before the chair began tipping, taking him with it. He grabbed onto the desk to keep from falling on his face, but that only succeeded in directing his momentum backward. Straight into the White-Out. He lay there for a second, noting the strange squishy feeling permeating the back of his jacket.

FIRAGA ZACK edged up to him, gingerly avoiding the sticky parts of the floor, and stuck his sword point at Reno's neck. "Uncle?"

Reno squeezed his eyes shut and wondered how all his careful plans had gone so terribly, horribly wrong. He opened his eyes, but Zack was staring at him expectantly so he closed them again and waited a few moments.

Reno cracked one eye open to assess how this reaction had affected Zack, but the SOLDIER seemed to be getting bored with him and the sword point was drooping alarmingly close to his neck. It seemed as though more sophisticated tactics would be required.

"Look, yo, if anything happens to me, the Turks will hunt you down. They'll never let you rest, not for a moment." Zack grinned a little at that, but still seemed to be enjoying Reno's current state far too much to be put off by some random threats. "They'll blackmail you. They'll release the tapes!"

Zack looked shocked and glanced around. He leaned closer to Reno, bringing his sword even closer than it had been previously. "You wouldn't be lying, would you?"

Reno shook his head vehemently, then realized with consternation that he had probably said too much, and possibly compromised the safety of any and all security cameras, as Zack straightened up and hurriedly left the room, peering around warily. A terrible thought suddenly occurred to the supine Turk: _did Zack know where the security room was? _If he did, he'd go straight to the source and take out _all _the cameras at once. Reno sat up urgently, feeling the not-yet-solidified White-Out pulling at his jacket and stringing down to the floor. Turning his attention to the chair he was stuck in, he jerked at his legs. It didn't take much pulling to realize that something more drastic would be required. Why were these things _always _happening to him?

* * *

Elena stifled a giggle as she watched Reno struggle around in the White-Out, trying to get the chair off of his legs. He eventually floundered off screen, and apparently found something to free himself with, as he didn't re-appear within range of the camera. Acting on a sudden urge, she popped the tape out of the recorder and tucked it inside her jacket as she slid a fresh one back into the slot.

On the screen behind Elena's back, a flame-handed figure could be clearly seen, striding along the passage with a vaguely unpleasant sort of determination. A few moments after the fiery form moved out of sight, Elena glanced briefly at the monitor as she turned around for a blanked-out tape, humming to herself cheerfully.

* * *

A/N: Square Enix seems to like putting certain important words in all capitals. FIRAGA ZACK is my attempt at that.

And I think Tseng's White-Out is just a mysterious eccentricity and nobody really knows why it's there. Maybe he's neurotically obsessed about never making mistakes. Or maybe Reno writes his reports on black paper with White-Out...

Stay tuned for the next chapter!


	6. Aftermath, and the Morning After

A/N: Well, this is the last chapter. I think I'll miss this story as much as anyone, because now I'll have to find something new to twist into publishable shape. Enjoy this last chapter, and thanks for reading!

...But stick around for the ALTERNATE CRACK ENDING, which I had no intention of writing, but still it happened.

* * *

Cissnei had tripped over an uncountable number of oddly-shaped objects and had gotten turned around twice before she recognized the hallway leading to the security room. She only got a few yards up the corridor before she noticed a dim, fire-edged silhouette stalking along the hall away from her. Cissnei backed up silently, trailing her hand along the wall to keep her bearings. Better to stay away for now, she realized - there was no telling what he was plotting.

She backtracked to the nearest side-room, and flipped the useless light-switch out of habit. She now felt even worse about letting Reno carry out this entire evil plot; this undispellable blackness alone was enough make one feel claustrophobic. Until one happened upon a Hell Firaga... Cissnei sighed and sank down against the wall by the door, intending to wait for Zack to leave before she ventured out again. Wouldn't this ever be over?

* * *

After wrestling his jacket free from the carpeting, Reno flopped awkwardly around on the floor until he finally kicked his legs out of the chair. He stood up wobblingly and pulled his ponytail away from his jacket. It made a tearing sound as it came away from the sticky whiteness, and Reno was near tears as he thought of what his hair would look like after this was over. Had he been more the reflective type, he would have recognized the irony of his current situation and sworn to never torment Sephiroth again on the basis of the General's hair. But alas, this was Reno, so no such thoughts came to his mind. Instead, he realized that he'd better head up to the security office and grab the tape containing the footage of the whole disgraceful incident.

Reno covered the well-traveled route to the security room in record time, arriving breathless and with a sinking feeling in his gut when he noticed the open door spilling light into the hallway. He gulped down sudden dread and stepped into the doorway. His eyes widened in horror at the sight before him.

"_NOOO!_"

* * *

Cissnei jumped up from her seat against the wall as an anguished cry ripped through the darkness. _So much for waiting until everything's over,_ she thought ruefully, swinging through the doorway and jogging down the hall toward the security room. She slowed down a dozen or so feet from the door, quietly slipping along the wall until she was right next to the entrance, where silence reigned once again. She _wasn't _going to get lured into another Zack trap, she told herself as she peeked around the corner.

Reno stood in the midst of the wreckage that once constituted the security room. All the television monitors had been smashed, with bits of glass around the edges and wires dangling out. The tape recorders were in a similar condition; some of them smoked faintly. Chairs had been overturned and cloven in two, and the floor was strewed ankle-deep with smashed VHS tapes; unraveled, filmy magnetic tape was heaped atop all, melted into a greasy-looking black mound.

Reno noticed her standing in the doorway and turned away quickly, but not before she saw his trembling lower lip, watery round eyes... Reno was _crying. _Cissnei stepped carefully over plastic shards and black goo to stand next to him.

"They're all gone, y- y-" Reno hiccuped, his eyes big and tear-filled.

"It's okay, Reno," Cissnei said, trying to decide how he might react if she were to hug him. She shrugged mentally and hugged him anyway. "I won't say I told you so, because I know you hate it, but really, Reno -" He hiccuped again. "Really, Reno, _what_ were you _thinking_?! They're _SOLDIER,_ for -"

"I j-just wanted t-t-to get back at 'em, but -" Suddenly realizing how unmanly he was acting, Reno abruptly straightened his shoulders. "They'll pay," he growled, balling up his fists.

Cissnei tried to drop her arms from around him but failed. Mildly surprised, she stood on tiptoe and peered over his shoulder at her arms, trying to figure out what was going on. "But I thought you would've learned your lesson by now, Reno," she said, still tugging at her sleeves. Reno seemed completely unconcerned, staring off into space as a sly smile slowly spread across his face.

"This was just the test run, Ciss. Next time, we'll do better. Be more efficient, have better stuff planned. Now we know their limits, and what they hate the most! Turks'll rule the Building, yo!" Reno grinned as he imagined future triumphs.

"Reno, that'll never...work...and what on Gaia _is_ this stuff on your suit?!"

Reno finally looked down and noticed that she still had her arms around him. "You can let go now, yo."

Cissnei glared at him. "I've _been_ trying, Reno, while you were busy gloating and daydreaming."

"Well, maybe I could get out of the jacket, and we'll take it from there..." Reno's voice became muffled as he put his plan into action, wriggling down out of his jacket. Cissnei simply stood there, glaring at a smashed-out monitor across the room and reminding herself to never again,under _any_ circumstances, hug Reno.

"Hey, Ciss," Reno began, standing up and tugging at his jacket and Cissnei's jacket's sleeves and scowling at them as the white stickiness refused to yield. "Have you seen Laney recently?"

* * *

Zack stopped in front of the elevator he and Angeal had arrived in, pulling his Turk captive to a stop beside him.

"What do you want?" Elena asked formally, remembering from basic training that establishing motives was the first and most important step in bargaining for one's life.

Zack grinned and pointed the the hot-wired elevator. "Fix it."

Elena glanced around nervously before she remembered that all the tape-recording devices had been destroyed. "I'm not sure I'm supposed to help you..." she started.

"No one'll know," Zack said seriously. "You can tell 'em I threatened you with death. Torture. Whatever you want. Just fix the elevator."

"And what if I said no?" Elena straightened up and tried to appear brave.

"Then I'd threaten you with death and torture. Now get cracking." He motioned her into the elevator with Angeal's Buster Sword. Elena considered resisting further, but good judgement prevailed as she realized that his sword was bigger than she was.

Zack started to follow her into the elevator, but froze suddenly at a noise behind him. He spun around, with the Buster Sword poised to defend, and nearly cut Angeal in half.

Angeal leapt back, realizing that there was only one weapon that could displace that much air when swung, and only one person who could and would want to wield it.

"ZACK FAIR! _What_ are you doing with that?!"

Zack's mouth flapped uselessly as he stared from his mentor to the sword and back. "I, uh...rescued it from the Turks' security room, same time I got Elena, um... It's okay, I didn't hurt it any, just sort of waved it around..."

Elena peeked out of the elevator to assess whether this could be a good escape opportunity, but quickly decided that an escape route blocked by two SOLDIERS did not constitute a good one.

"Relax, Angeal. It's fine. Besides, it helped secure us an escape route." He motioned toward the dimly-glowing panel of the elevator.

Angeal scowled and snatched his sword back, able to see its outline against the panel Zack indicated. "I hope it never manages to make its way into your hands ever again, Zack."

"So you won't even let me touch it?" Zack asked, trying his best to sound forlorn.

Angeal scowled. "Over my dead body."

"Oh."

Angeal frowned in Zack's direction but decided that it would probably be best to let the entire matter drop. "Someone's coming."

Zack glanced up the corridor. "It's Sephiroth."

Angeal half-glared, half-stared at Zack's silhouette. "How do you know?"

"Oh. Night-vision goggles," Zack said, pointing smugly at the referenced item.

"So that's how the Turks-" Angeal started, but was cut off as Sephiroth arrived, nearly tripping over Angeal's newly-recovered sword in the process.

Zack ignored the disturbance and continued the conversation. "Yeah. Can I keep them? They might come in handy some day."

Sephiroth righted himself and remarked rather disconnectedly, "This place feels familiar."

Zack stared at him. "What makes you say that?"

"What can you see around here?"

"Uh..." Zack turned around and looked back and forth. "The corridor's long, and straight, and there's thick carpet, and the walls are plain except for some wall fans or something... One looks broken -"

"Wall...fans?"

"Yeah, sure. What about it?"

"Let's leave. Quickly. I've had more than enough of this place."

"Oookay. We'll...be going then." Zack turned and marched into the elevator, grabbing Elena as she was about to step out. "And you aren't going anywhere just yet. We have to make sure we don't end up on the wrong floor again."

Elena gulped and nodded, deciding that with three SOLDIERS in the one tiny elevator, she didn't have much of a chance of winning an argument. All she wanted was to get this over with as quickly as possible.

The SOLDIERS sighed in relief as the elevator dinged, the doors slid shut, and the car began gliding steadily downward toward their own floor.

Zack leaned against the wall and let his chin drop to his chest. "Y'know, Angeal, I was tired to begin with from that training session. And I just realized that I haven't been able to feel my feet for a good long while now."

Angeal scoffed and thought about replying, but the lights fortuitously cut on at that moment and he was saved from having to force a response out of his tired brain.

He glanced up briefly and noticed that Zack was staring curiously at Sephiroth, who was leaning against the wall and ignoring the others. He started to disregard the whole scene until he noticed exactly what it was about Sephiroth that made Zack stare. The Silver General's trademark silver hair wasn't silver anymore. It was blue. Ugly, cheap-looking powder blue. And kinky. Elena's face was whiter than ever, and she was staring pleadingly at Angeal, desperately shaking her head. He closed his eyes again and leaned back against the wall. Of course he wouldn't say anything; this elevator was too small for Sephiroth to murder anyone in. Masamune was too long.

An idea suddenly occurred to Angeal, and he straightened up and turned to Elena. She looked as though she was about to faint.

"Why were you in the security room?"

"Taping stuff, Angeal," Zack cut in. "But don't worry. I destroyed 'em all. _Right_, Elena?"

Elena gulped. If she said yes, they probably wouldn't believe her. And they might find the tape of Reno she had, and then they wouldn't believe anything else she said, and might do terrible things to her and film it all to send to the Turks.

Zack and Angeal watched with increasing worry as Elena stared at them, eyes growing larger and larger as she shrank into the corner.

Zack glanced between her and Angeal in confusion, not entirely sure what was going on.

"Uh, all I said was -"

"No," Elena whispered faintly. She had never expected to die this soon.

"What?"

Elena blinked and slowly looked up at Zack. "No...I...I kept one." She quickly diverted her gaze to the floor when Sephiroth looked up, but was somewhat surprised when no one demanded the tape or ran her through.

"What's on the one you kept?" Zack asked.

"Well...remember when you surprised Reno in the beer closet, and chased him around the desk and he got stuck in the chair? I kept that one. I...just wanted to have something to hold over Reno for once, instead of the other way round."

Zack noticed the stern expression on Angeal's face. Another Honor lecture would come of this, particularly if Angeal actually saw the video. Zack laughed nervously and slapped Elena on the back, almost pitching her through the elevator doors. "Keep the tape. But you'd better be telling the truth, or else."

The unspoken threat was more than enough to insure Elena's compliance, and she nodded quickly, shocked that the SOLDIERS would let her off so easily. She jumped as the elevator dinged loudly, and no sooner were the doors open than the SOLDIERS were out on their own floor. Zack, being the only one feeling at all disposed to friendliness at that moment, waved to her as he left. Elena's mind was too tired to work out whether that was good or bad. As soon as they were out, her hand crept up the wall to the "door close" button, and she held it down as she sank to the floor in relief and exhaustion.

Reno was going to die for this.

* * *

Zack watched the elevator doors slide shut. "Y'know, it was pretty stupid to follow Reno's advice and use those elevators to begin with. Or we should've just taken the stairs out..."

"Don't even mention it," Angeal groaned, heading up the passage toward his quarters.

"The stair doors were locked," Sephiroth pointed out.

"Oh. And, uh, I forgot to mention this, Angeal..." Zack trotted to catch up with Angeal and pulled the materia out of his hand and held it up. "...but I got a Hell Firaga."

Angeal slowed to a stop as Zack continued, "Can I keep it?"

Angeal reached out and took the materia from Zack. "I don't think so, Zack. The last thing we need are Hell Firaga competitions between you and Genesis."

"Oh. Yeah. I guess you're right..." Zack stopped walking and watched the other two SOLDIERS walk away, one with his sword covered in sticky residue and fuzz and the other with blue, kinky hair. He didn't want to be anywhere in the vicinity when those two facts were discovered, so even though he usually got to stay on the Firsts' floor due to his apprenticeship with Angeal, he decided to sleep on the Seconds' floor that night.

He reached up to push the elevator call button and noticed for the first time the bruises running up his arms. The rest of him probably looked about the same, and every muscle in his body was aching. On second thought, it looked as though he would just have to crash in the first place he could find. And he decided that he didn't really want to use the elevators anyway.

* * *

Tseng stifled a yawn and glanced at his watch as the elevator slowly moved up the Tower to the Turk floor. Trust Scarlet to chair a meeting that lasted all evening. Pair that with the problems at the train station, and the new guard at the Building's entrance... The elevator was taking forever; to kill time, Tseng removed a pamphlet from his small briefcase and began paging through it. It had been handed out to each department head, and it contained all the information pertinent to the topics discussed at the conference; about the only important thing to come out of the meeting had been the final confirmation of the fact that the Junon Cannon was now fully operational.

The elevator doors ground open and Tseng stepped out, frowning worriedly at the pamphlet. There wasn't anything known to man that could do what this cannon was capable of, and it worried him immensely. Tseng slowly looked up, forcing himself to look away from the paper before he tripped. He stopped suddenly, at the edge of what appeared to be a war zone. There was overturned furniture scattered liberally around, mounded into piles, and stacked haphazardly up the walls. Unidentifiable fragments of junk littered the floor. A couch was propped up on end on one side of the room, and a smashed hulk that suspiciously resembled Heidegger's desk was overturned by the far wall. And there were blackened scorch-marks all over the remaining walls.

Tseng blinked. "Reno! Mandatory debriefing on floor thirty-nine."

Reno, in not much better condition than the Turk lounge, sheepishly poked his head into the room. "Sir?"

"This floor's unusable. Round everyone up immediately - I want explanations. And plan on spending the night elsewhere."

"Yes, sir."

Tseng sighed as the bedraggled redhead left. He realized that he had been wrong - the world _did_ contain destructive powers greater than the Sister Ray, after all.

* * *

Early the next morning, Zack found Cloud as the latter was on his way to training. Ignoring the other cadets' awed stares at seeing a SOLDIER on the cadet floor, Zack hurried up to Cloud, who hadn't seen him coming and jumped when Zack grabbed him by the arm.

"Zack!" Cloud exclaimed, not too surprised as Zack's excitement, but filled with foreboding as to what its cause was today. "What are you doing here?"

"No time to talk now!" Zack said, tugging on his arm. "I need your help with something!"

"But I can't just leave! I have classes!"

"Don't worry about it. It's a mission...sort of. C'mon!"

Cloud put all his strength into resisting the eager SOLDIER's tugging. "If it involves Genesis, I'm not coming." Cloud realized that whatever Zack's true purpose was, there was nothing he could do, short of suicide, to prevent it from being carried out.

Zack let go of Cloud's arm and instead began bouncing restlessly from one foot to the other. "It's not that, Cloud. I need you to come with me, and Kunsel's already waiting."

So that was it. A conspiracy. No wonder Zack was being so vague.

"You aren't planning on throwing me to the Thirds, are you?

Zack looked surprised and a little hurt. "You know I wouldn't do that to you."

Cloud realized that no, he didn't know that, but it became a moot point as Zack propelled him bodily toward the elevator.

"The truth is, I've got a little score to settle with the Turks, and they're all at some sort of mandatory meeting...still...so some friends and I are are getting together and setting up some, uh, planned accidents."

As the elevator doors slid shut and the car began ascending, Cloud realized that he should probably be far more worried about this whole idea. In fact, the more he thought about it, the more he realized just how bad it could be.

"You're planning on using me as your scapegoat, aren't you?" he asked nervously. He didn't really believe it himself, but it would be better to figure out Zack's intentions now, before it was too late and he had no way of backing out.

"No! Of course not! I'm just bringing all my friends, and some of the things planned are kinda elaborate and we might need a few more hands."

Oh, great. That made Cloud feel better - his life probably wasn't going to be at stake. But what about court-martial?

The doors opened on a scene of industrious activity on the Turk-free Turk floor. Close to a dozen other Seconds and Thirds were ranged about the lobby. Some were systematically dismantling security cameras and rerouting them to feed into various terminals on the SOLDIER floor; others were locating the power main, sealing windows, wallpapering over doors, and setting various creative booby-traps. Loud construction-like noises echoed from one of the halls leading into the lobby, and nearby two SOLDIERS were filling a broom-closet with marbles. Zack strode into the thick of the action, pulling Cloud along with him. He waved to Kunsel, who was busy spreading slow-drying adhesive down the length of one corridor, then turned back to Cloud, releasing his arm.

"And don't worry about skipping classes," Zack said, a wide grin slowly spreading across his face. "We're working with the full support of Angeal and Sephiroth. They'll excuse you."

Cloud stopped in his tracks and stared after Zack, agape. Angeal and _Sephiroth_?! Whatever these Turks had done to anger the Firsts must have been unfathomably stupid. Scratch that part about court-martial. If they pulled this off well, there might be promotions all around.

A still-helmeted Second walked up next to him carrying enormous box bulging with black goggle-like things and assorted electronics. "Hey Kunsel, after this is over, I call dibs on the loudspeakers. And you wouldn't believe how many MRE's are in here," he said, dropping the box to the floor with a loud thump.

Kunsel looked up as the other SOLDIER walked toward him. "Lux, watch where you step! And those MRE's are useless. They aren't messy, and you can't even eat them."

Cloud looked down at the box very seriously. "Ammo."

The Second, with an inscrutable expression on the visible half of his face, reached down into the box and pulled out a rock-hard package of dehydrated...something. Suddenly a smile broke out on his face. "You're right. We need to bring cadets along more often. Hey, guys! How fast do you think we can make a bunch of slingshots?"

Cloud began rifling through the box for more ideas as the SOLDIER walked off. There wasn't much variety in there, except... Cloud's hand closed around a strange can-like thing at the bottom of the box, and he pulled it out for closer inspection. Blue hair dye? Something made him think of Reno. Reno made him think of red. Red and blue made purple. Cloud stood up and grinned. It was worth a shot.

He looked around and saw Zack take up a position where he could be seen by the entire roomful of SOLDIERS. Zack clapped his hand for attention and assumed his best pep-talk attitude.

"Alright, SOLDIERS! Let's see what these Turks are _really_ made of!"

Kunsel stared at him. "Uh, Zack, you just stepped in the adhesive."

* * *

A/N: And so the chaos finally ends. A fact worth noting is that this story was originally supposed to be a oneshot, due to its being a more-or-less non-stop action sequence. About halfway through the first draft, I realized that it was growing beyond the limits of a one-shot, so I split it up to make it less daunting (because who wouldn't be intimidated by an 18,000+ word oneshot?).

A big THANK YOU to everyone who reviewed, favorited, or followed. Especially to those who reviewed. And extra-especially to madinalakesavedmylife.

See you in the Alternate Ending!


	7. ALTERNATE CRACK ENDING

A/N: The title says it all. It's crack. You were warned.

(This picks up right after Elena fixes the elevator and she, Seph, Angeal, and Zack all pile in.)

* * *

The SOLDIERS sighed in relief as the elevator dinged, the doors slid shut, and the car began gliding steadily downward toward their own floor.

Zack leaned against the wall and let his chin drop to his chest. "Y'know, Angeal, I was tired to begin with from that training session. And I just realized that I haven't been able to feel my feet for a good long while now."

The lights cut on at that moment, and Angeal looked over at Zack. Suddenly a terrible, wonderful idea came to his normally-serious mind. "Zack!" he exclaimed, plastering a look of horror on his face. "_What happened to your FEET?!"_

_"WHAT?!"_ Zack jerked forward to look at his feet, but lost his balance (due to his numb feet) and stumbled forward, slamming into Sephiroth's chest. Sephiroth, grabbing wildly for support, fell unceremoniously into the button panel, and from there to the floor. Elena fled from his grasp, only to bump into Angeal. The elevator dinged cheerily and dropped, and Angeal felt the floor leave him a moment before he, too, went down, taking Elena with him. Zack, squished between the Turk and Sephiroth, squirmed wildly, trying to get out. Sephiroth closed his eyes in an expression of long-suffering exhaustion and decided that apart from the crushing weight on his chest, this was as good a place as any to finally get some rest.

The elevator rapidly counted the floors as they descended, until the dings merged into a happy, mocking little tune. Angeal realized that there was probably a good reason why he never attempted practical jokes.

* * *

"C'mon, Cloud, push the button! Curfew's in _five minutes! _We gotta move! We'll be lucky if we make it in time!"

"I'm getting it! I'm getting it!" Cloud hopped toward the elevator on one leg as he pulled on his boot, finishing just in time to catch himself against the wall and punch the "up" arrow.

Meanwhile his friend, Alex, stuffed his wet towel into his mouth to free up his hands and began rapidly buckling the belts over his uniform top. Cloud, still on one leg, began fastening his boot, but stopped as the rapid-fire dinging of the elevator registered in his ears. He slowly looked up at the display above the elevator and watched the numbers ratcheting down at lightning speed. "Hey, Alex?"

"Hmph?" His friend made a muffled noise and looked up, staring at the display. "Clou..." he said, from around the towel. "You're hittim de buttun fr' now on."

Cloud opened and closed his mouth weakly as the two watched the elevator continue to rocket downward, a steady rumbling noise growing louder as the car neared. Then the number froze on their floor, and the rumbling was replaced by a brief, earsplitting shriek of metal and a violent tremor. The elevator dinged one last time, and the doors rolled open.

The cadets stared down in astonishment at the unexpected, shocking sight in the elevator. Sephiroth, the great Silver General himself, was on his back with his eyes closed at the bottom of a heap that seemed to contain Angeal, the Buster Sword, something that could have been Zack, and an assortment of tangled limbs that _had_ to belong to them but didn't quite seem to connect, along with a few extra that couldn't be categorized.

That sight was bad enough to ruin _anyone's _conception of SOLDIER, but to make matters worse, Sephiroth groaned. At least, it should have been a groan, because he looked for all the world like he was about to, but the sound that came out was the highest, longest, gaspy _squeak_ to ever issue from anyone the cadets knew.

Cloud simply stared, balanced on one leg, unable to do so much as blink. Alex's towel hit the floor with a wet smack.

At that moment Angeal stirred, lifting his arm and delivering a sound blow to the button panel inside the elevators. The doors slid shut and the elevator meekly began counting back up at a resigned pace.

Cloud and Alex continued staring at the door for a few minutes, flabbergasted.

Cloud finally broke the silence. "No one's going to believe us."

Alex blinked. "Curfew."

Both cadets stiffened and then simultaneously took off at a dead run, toward the door to the stairs at the far end of the hall.

* * *

About halfway back up to the SOLDIER floor, the mound on the floor of the elevator finally managed to sort itself out into the proper number of individual bodies. Elena propped herself up against the nearest wall, gasping to get her wind back and feeling rather embarrassed for squeaking so loudly after that bone-jarring stop.

Angeal stood as far off to one side as he could manage, trying to figure out how one simple exclamation had managed to create all this havoc.

Zack finally thrashed himself off of Sephiroth, apparently not believing in doing anything the easy way.

Sephiroth slowly sat up and scowled at the elevator panel, glaring daggers at the button marked "EMERGENCY DESCENT - PRESIDENTIAL USE ONLY".

Zack cleared his throat, looking around until his gaze landed on Angeal. "So, tell me. What _did _happen to my feet? I know _I_ didn't see anything."

* * *

A/N: So...yeah. Not a clue where that came from. It's been a while since I last wrote real crack, so I guess the crack muse just had to get out. And Genesis R just _had_ to ask what would happen if someone acted horrified and demanded to know where Zack's feet were, and one thing led to another, and the cadets wanted to come too, and pretty soon this whole scenario just popped out of nowhere. It was horrible. Tell me your thoughts on the matter.


End file.
